questions and answers, and observations

today the baron is thinking:

why did she pick raisins for her home-made trail mix?
(really, because the dried cherries and dried cranberries were many, many times more expensive than the raisins. it turns out, the baron's not ALL THAT INTO raisins. drat.)

why do the raisins seem to float to the top of trail mix?

kind of gross, how dog poo just sits on top of frozen snow: it's blight on an otherwise lovely scene.

how can a full-sized quilt be crammed into a regular-sized sewing machine?
(the baron can't even figure out how to get a table runner into the sewing machine.)

why is there no good television before noon?
(it's seriously time to retire 'charmed' and 'the west wing' and 'er'.)

baron looks like an otter, navigating the frozen yard.

pot pie for dinner tonight. and, as the husband is in philadelphia, she's got the television all to herself. score.

better times

reader, the weather today is terrible, all snow and gloom.

well.

terrible if you are the kind of person who has to travel to a job, which the baron is. it's probably great weather if you're the kind of person who can stay home all day in house slippers, up to your ears in hot tea and watching harry potter movies back to back.

ahem.

so. the baron is thinking about better days, the ones that are coming soon.

a new day dawning (thank you, tucker)

reader, the baron has neglected you lo these last few months. oh, yes, there have been posts, but her mind has been elsewhere, occupied by other things... election maps, election day, thanksgiving, portland, christmas, new year's eve and the day after, inaugural activities... the list, really, goes on.

it seems to her that the end of 2008, the quick succession of holidays, left her dazed in a peculiar kind of way, in a NOT NORMAL way. she left 2008 on a high, in a cloud of happy happy, and you know what? that feeling is JUST STARTING TO FADE. like, today, just starting to fade.

she thinks it's because of all this election hoopla, all this inauguration business, all this stuff about getting a new head of state for america. inauguration day was, for her, the very last in a series of winter holidays; now that it's past, she can get back to the business of being that glass-half-full-gal.

she wanted to convey that to you, reader, not as an excuse for her paltry postings of late, but as the explanation. last week was especially bare, and she apologizes, but somehow, the baron can't type when giddy, and last week? she was giddy but good.

anyhoo, here's a random sampling of some of her thoughts from the last week or so:

-laura's coming! yay!
-las vegas? really? ok.
-las vegas? really? laura kind of sold me on it, what with all that promise of a disneyland day and a spa day, but now i'm all, las vegas? really?
-rick warren, i'm not all that into god and you're not really changing my mind.
-diane feinstein, nice job. surprisingly nice job.
-barack obama, please don't make me roll my eyes. please say important words, ones with meaning. it's been a very long time since i was proud of america and I AM REALLY COUNTING ON YOU HERE.
-i can't believe barack obama didn't make me roll my eyes. or make me cry.
-reverend lowery, i'm not all that into god but you. are. kind. of. making. me. wish. i. were. and you made me cry. and i said 'amen' all three times. and hell is frozen over.
-carrot sunshine muffins or cranberry orange? (note: it turns out, both.)
-if you're going to new york, will you bring me a canoli? canoli. canoli.
-bocconcini.
-damn you white balance. i hate you.
-the husband, we should make an effort to mind our language. no curse words. (note: this is not really working very well. so far.)
-pot holders are easier than purses. and laundry bags.
-i conquered the mitered corner! i am queen of the mitered corner!
-michael sheen, you are kind of impressing me right now. (note: while watching this movie.)
-bill nighy, i love you. even in all that makeup, and as you are making cat noises, i love you.
-michael sheen, you are TOTALLY impressing me right now. (note: as in, all those other acting-talent-required movies he's been in.)
-free 'time' magazine - yay!
-free 'out' magazine - yay! and then, boo. greasy boys make pretty pictures, but the articles have to be good too. and out? your articles? they kind of suck. all one of them.
-i'll come running.
-tickets purchased: brian eno and david byrne at radio city music hall. which means i can get my own canoli! canoli.

meet the team

the new york times is running a special inauguration issue of the sunday magazine over at nytimes.com... the baron read this enlightening photo essay this morning. notice how many women and minorities there are? notice how, on the whole, the group skews kind of young? notice how the baron is falling in LOVE WITH THESE PEOPLE?

yep, the '09's going to be great.

sew the baron was saying...

the husband gave the baron a sewing machine for christmas, and - though her relationship to sewing machines has historically been cool to say the least - the baron is delighted by and grateful for this mechanical gift.

she has had a singer sewing machine, a rather old one, for ages and ages - it was a moving out of the house gift from her mother, but the truth is this: the baron was never able to master the old machine, she couldn't find the manual, couldn't get the tension right... the meeting of the baron and that old singer usually resulted in some kind of clusterfuck.

but.

this new machine is amazing and idiot proof, which is just the kind of help the baron needs.

so.

remember this fabric for the sunroom? that plan for the holiday break? see what the baron accomplished, below:

this is just one of many roman shades she made during that week-long... 3 of 5 shades are in place, 4 of 5 are completed and the fifth will be sewn this weekend! so, yay!

but, reader, the baron has completed SO MUCH MORE! with the help of this book, the baron has become a purse making machine!

the first one she made...


and the second, with a closeup of the interior:




and the third one, her favorite so far, with a little appliqued star on the front pocket and a closeup of the lining...





and reader, if you were wondering: yes, this i-will-never-use-a-sewing-machine flavored humble pie is DELICIOUS.

a fema first, part two

the transcript of david paulison's media conference is here.

unidentified male 1 is my favorite player.

a fema first

reader, the baron's not sure if you know, but she used to work for the federal government, for this broken down, morally bankrupt and generally mismanaged agency you may have heard of, called fema? it was a job she liked (she was a planner, a job that appealed to her sense of order), despite the travel, but she could never get over the nepotism (even while she benefited from it), or the political appointees, or the way policy changes were made by people who had never been involved in the response end of an emergency, and hadn't been to the field, ever.

it's not a note on her resume that she's particularly proud of, if you get her drift.

however.

the husband still has a stake in it. she thinks it's because he's kind of an adrenaline junkie, though he doth protest (too much). and, lately, he's doing work that interests him, he's carved out his own little new media/social media niche. as far as the baron can tell, the husband is getting only scattered support from his agency peers (yay for bill! and aaron!), but this fact doesn't really seem to deter him. at all. in fact, despite lacking real peer support, the baron is quite pleased to say that the husband is appearing less and less like a cervantes character every day!

ahem.

all that to say, yesterday was a big day for the husband, something about new media or a twitter media event, something something, reaching out to bloggers, something something. follow the links and read on for yourself.

a tale of two chickens

the baron's mother was born in the year of the rooster, an obvious fact to anyone who has visited the baron's mother's house. roosters abound, in the form of kitschy bric-a-brac and at least one large wall clock.

the baron, though born in the year of the snake, seems to be following her mother's poultry-flavored footsteps:



the chicken on the left, or timer chicken, was a gift from the baron's recent traveling companion, and is a little something you, reader can pick up at anthropologie. the chicken on the right, or chicky chicky brock brock, is something the baron and the husband picked up in phoenix a few years ago, from sur la table. chicky holds salt and, along with timer chicken, stands silent guard over the kitchen. a nice pair, no?

one more for the blue team

the baron says, "congratulations, minnesota, you've done good."

friday breakfast

so, because of that pesky cancer thing, the baron has to take this pill once daily, in the mornings. (by the by, how weird are the graphics at levoxyl.com? super weird, right?) the pill is to be taken on an empty stomach, and no food can be had for the next 60 minutes. it seems pretty simple, as it should, but reader, it's actually NOT SIMPLE at all. if the baron took her levoxyl as soon as she got up, her 60 minute don't-eat-anything limit would expire right around 7:45am, which is, inconveniently, the time she's leaving for work.

so.

her work-around is this: most mornings, the baron is prompted to take her pill at around 4:30am, for this is when the husband, to a symphony of canine-related sounds, gets up to let the dogs out. taking the pill so early in the day ensures that, by the time she's waking up, she can have a worry-free morning meal. lately, though, the baron has been sleeping right through these early morning rumblings; the tick-tacking of the dogs' nails on the hardwood floor, the jangling of their collars, and baron's barking don't wake her AT ALL.

so.

this means that the baron is taking her pill at around 6:45am, which means that she doesn't have time for actual food before heading to work.

which means that lately, breakfast - and not just the friday ones - looks a lot like this:

are you having a laugh? the baron, she is not.

the baron and the husband are steadily working through their netflix queue, moving from 'the king of kong' to 'saving face' to 'cinema paradiso' to 'hancock'. (you, reader, are thinking 'what a random assortment of films, eh?' while the baron and the husband are thinking, 'how sophisticated are we that our filmic tastes range from blockbuster to independent lesbian comedy/drama?')

netflix is particularly valuable when it comes to television series: the baron and the husband can, in rather a short time, view their way through an entire series... which is what they're doing now.

they're into the second season of 'extras', and reader, the baron thinks she's in love with ricky gervais. and possibly ashley jensen. and daniel radcliffe and patrick stewart. and also, barry from eastenders.

but.

the baron DOES NOT love, not remotely, ricky gervais' andy millman playing ray stokes. it's the glasses, and the under-slung jaw, and the wig, and that GODDAMN CATCHPHRASE THAT IS STUCK IN THE BARON'S HEAD ON A PERMA-LOOP.

see for yourself:

should old acquaintance be forgot

reader, 2009 is here the baron couldn't be happier about it. 2008 was, on the whole, a pretty good year, but there are some moments the baron is glad to leave behind, including this, this, this and this.

of course, we all know the passage of time doesn't do anything to those things, doesn't eradicate them. time, though it may diminish our memories and the immediacy of the moment, doesn't actually eradicate anything.

for instance, photos? time's anathema.

and the baron's mother? doing a little house cleaning.

to wit:




the baron doesn't know in what years those photos were taken. but, she remembers her mother parting her hair with scientific precision and wrestling it into two pigtails. and she remembers that white dress from the second picture; it was diaphanous, kind of, and had a little cluster of orange and yellow flowers embroidered on the front. and that last photo? with the bangs AND the farmer looking shirt AND the overalls? the baron has no idea what's going on there, but you know what? she's very glad for the years that have intervened between that photo and today... helping her forget and all that, eh?

reader, happy new year. the '09's going to be a good one.